1)Mom and Dad. 2) I speak English and you speak English. 3) And who are you? 4) I speak English and you speak Ukrainian. The first two sentences have "and" as a copulative conjunction. Sentences 3 and 4 - "and" as an adversative conjunction. Use і/та for 1) 2) and а for 3) 4)

Moreover, Russian also have two versions of the "first" and, just like Ukranian: Ukr. "i" = Rus. "и" (pronunced the same), and Ukr. "та" [ta] = Rus. "да" [da]. But in Russian the difference in usage is totally stylistic ("да" sounds obsolete, or poetical, or emphasized etc.), while in Ukranian the difference is more phonetical, orphoepical

Hm, that is interesting! We have the i/a distinction in Serbian as well, but I can think of some cases where you could use "a" between words and not sentences, like, e.g., "She is pretty, yet smart". :D

Yes, this is exactly how it works in Ukrainian, as I said! "a" is only for connecting sentences. I can think of only one case where it's (seemingly) connecting word: Вона не американка, а українка (She is not American but Ukrainian). But in this case one could argue that it's still connecting sentences, not words, there's a hidden "to be" there :) Вона любить не картоплю, а суп (She likes not potatoes but soup).

No. It can be translated as "but" in some cases in English. It means "and" for things that are contrasting or different.

Check the top post again. In English you can say both "I am here and you are there" and "I am here but you are there", but in Ukrainian you can only say "Я тут, а ти там", you can't do "Я тут, і ти там", that sounds very weird because і only connects similar things

THANK YOU! It is okay if we know what is going on. We will have to learn that also. Thank you for opening that up for us. We would not have had the opportunity to learn the cursive if you had not done that, so I am glad that you did. So the cursive Ukrainian 'm' is going to look like 'u', at least there is a difference so the cursive Ukrainian 't' can look like 'm' and I will know it is not our 'm'. Wait, the last letter in italics м does not look like the cursive. там
Сould you also send me a list of your italics? I guess I just have to look for the curved m in your italics meaning 't' versus the angular м.

Which form of and do I use?

In Ukrainian, there are four words that mean and; і, та, а and й. Three of them; і, та and й are all used to link similar things, the only reason we have so many is so we can switch them around to make the language flow and sound more melodic.

Мама і тато - Mom and dad

Та я! - And me!

Мова й алфавіт - Language and alphabet

It's really up to you when you want to use them :)

But on the other hand, а is used to contrast between two different things. It roughly corresponds to the English whereas.

No, it should not. If it were a phrase, it probably should, but this is a complete sentence (a question, actually). I don't even think "And I" is a good translation. In real life, such a question is used in a sense "And [what about] me?"